"Here in the land of the Three Musketeers, the Gascony region of southwest France, goose and duck fat are slathered on bread instead of butter, the people snack on fried duck skin, and eat twice as much foie gras as other Frenchmen, and fifty times as much as Americans.

It was no surprise when Dr. Serge Renaud, in a 10-year epidemiological study that included surveys of eating habits, concluded that Gascons eat diet higher in saturated fat than any other group of people in the industrialized world....But scientists crinkled a collective brow over Dr. Renaud's related findings about this region, which produces much of the world's foie gras, the fattened livers of ducks and geese. "The fois gras eaters of the Gers and Lot Departments in Southwest France have the lowest rate of death from cardiovascular disease in the country," he said....The basic Gascon in his blue beret would not be surprised. Standing in his barnyard Mr. Saint-Pe listened to Dr. Renaud's findings as though he were being told the obvious. "The people in my family live to be ninety years old," he said. "We cook everything in duck fat. We have foie gras on Sunday. Everybody knows this is the long-life diet."

-Elisabeth Rosenthal New York Times